Took a tumble about a month ago on my Valkyrie---about $1500 in damage. I was turning right into my driveway when I hear what seems like 20 minutes of tires squealing behind me. In my effort to "GET THE HELL OFF THE ROAD" I was leaning so far that my footpeg caught the gravel brim at the asphalt. 94 feet of black tire marks in front of my driveway remind me and the wife every time we turn in of just how close disaster can be.

Well of course one of my wife's friends call her at work and ask what an EMS truck and my bike on its side is doing at my driveway---with me nowhere in sight. (I was being checked in the EMS ambulance at the time, while the girl and state trooper had a "discussion"

To make matters worse, my phone was silenced because I was riding home from work. I missed 6 calls from her.

Well, I have yet to hear "You need to sell one or both of your bikes". She understands me. The way I look at it, my last crash was 1977, so if I have one crash every 41 years, I think I am doing pretty good.

On a related subject, about 13 years ago, I drove a gasoline tanker for a living---they have about a 40% fatality rate with every crash the last I heard. My 75 year old buddy asked me one day as he was looking at my latest bike, "Do you ever drive ANYTHING that won't kill the hell out of ya?"

 

The last two sentences; copy that!!!
My best friend died in January, 1990.
We were already getting his Ultra ready for his ride to Daytona.
Broke his wife's heart when she saw some of the stuff he had already done in preparation.

You just never know......................

 

The aviation analog is "No flight plan was filed", like it affected how the engine ran or how the pilot flew the airplane.

 

Especially in a helmet state. As far as I can tell, nobody in my helmet state rides without a helmet. Nobody wants to throw away $125 on a ticket for not wearing a helmet. Reporting whether someone here was wearing a helmet is pointless, because they always are.

 

They only mention it here if they weren't wearing one. I agree, a pet peeve.

 

I've been getting the same worrying from family for years because I ride snowmobiles in the mountains. Every year we hear about someone who got lost or ran off a cliff or into a tree or just ran out of gas and dies trying to walk out. I get the phone calls from loved ones. I even got a SPOT which transmits my location via satellite to my wife cell phone every 15 minutes so she can tell if I'm moving or not.

She worries when I snowmobile, when I go skiing, when I go fishing, when I go hunting, and now when I go riding. Not once has she asked me to quit. I am ***** whipped...cuz she's rather cute. If she asked me to quit I probably would. But I would take up something else that would make her worry so it wouldn't serve any purpose. She worries. I like to live on the edge of life. The amazing sex is what keeps us together. That and the silly grandkids.

 

I had a new 1982 Gs 750E myself. Fun bike that pulled fairly hard. Especially when modded...